Criminalizing of marijuana targets poor, people of color

Bizarrely, it is Democrats who favor continues funding of programs that send cops into low-income Hispanic and Black neighborhoods looking for young people to bust for tiny amounts of marijuana. Bush and Republicans wanted to kill the programs, Democrats insisted the programs stay, says Charles M. Blow in a NYT Op-ed.

For instance, the report says that the City of Los Angeles “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.”

This imbalance is not specific to California; it exists across the country.